(Bloomberg) — Amazon.com Inc.’s Ring division has reassigned hundreds of customer service employees to central hubs in the U.S. and U.K. as it seeks to streamline and automate operations across the company.
Affected employees are working remotely and are required to report to the company’s Hawthorne, California, office. North Reading, Massachusetts. Tempe, Arizona. or London, according to a memo sent earlier this month and seen by Bloomberg. Hundreds of workers will have to relocate to keep their jobs, two people familiar with the matter said.
Amazon’s video doorbell division said in a memo that it is considering transforming its customer service department into an “AI-powered proactive support ecosystem.”
The memo states that some customer-facing employees and their supervisors can continue to work remotely. The division also supports Amazon’s Blink camera and home security brands.
An Amazon spokesperson confirmed the relocation requirements but declined to comment further.
Amazon CEO Andy Jassy warned in June that AI tools that can perform human tasks are likely to shrink the company’s workforce. Four months later, Amazon announced it was cutting 14,000 positions within the company.
The layoffs have upset workers who have already faced several layoffs and orders to return to the office five days a week.
Some employees see the transfer and return-to-office policy as an effort by Amazon to get employees to leave without paying them severance. The company denied this, and in October estimated that this year’s retirement benefits had reached $2 billion as of Sept. 30.
Ring’s relocation order will likely result in a large number of customer service staff leaving the company, said one of the affected employees, who requested anonymity to avoid possible retaliation.
Ring founder Jamie Siminoff returned to the company as CEO earlier this year and made it clear that AI would play a key role in the company’s future.
–With assistance from Matt Day.
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